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Ontario high school teachers to resume extracurricular activities

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne applauds high school teachers, given the go-ahead by their union to resume extracurricular activities.

Track and other sports and extracurricular activities are set to resume soon in Ontario public high schools, after union presidents from around the province voted Friday to suspend political actions.
(DAVID COOPER / TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO)

Premier Kathleen Wynne says it was goodwill and not cash or benefits that got the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation to agree to bring back extracurricular activities.

“The arrangements that have been reached do not add any money into the contracts,” Wynne told reporters at Queen’s Park on Friday.

“They are all priorities and issues that do not have an impact on the fiscal framework.”

Wynne said what the teachers wanted to hear was that “there would be an ongoing conversation” about collective bargaining in the future.

“It is a very good day for young people in the province. I really believe that we can work together,” she said, adding that similar negotiations are ongoing with the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, whose members also withdrew voluntary work after Bill 115 imposed a two-year wage freeze.

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In an interview, the premier said she believed timing played a part in the deal, which could restore after-school clubs, teams and field trips for some 450,000 children in Ontario's public English-language high schools. With March Break approaching, “many teachers and support staff recognized that the term was coming to an end, and if they're going to have extracurriculars it was important to get them up and running.”

Opposition parties applauded the agreement but warned it's not a guarantee that schools will get back to normal.

“It's a bit early for Kathleen Wynne to be patting herself on the back, we know there's a number of outstanding issues,” said Progressive Conservative education critic Lisa MacLeod, remaining suspicious the union was offered incentives such as weakening standardized testing that some teachers don't like.

“What concessions were actually made?” she wondered.

Education Minister Liz Sandals said there was no deal to scrap or modify standardized testing.

“There's a long way to go before the conflicts in our schools are going to be resolved . . . it is very, very fragile,” he added.

The go-ahead for high school teachers to resume extracurricular activities came from the union Friday afternoon.

While it’s the first big breakthrough in the labour turmoil that has plagued the province’s education system, not every school can expect to see a return of sports and clubs.

Ken Coran, president of the high school teachers’ union, said in written statement the union still believes “voluntary activities are just that: voluntary. We encourage members to review recent information and decide if they are willing to return to participating in the activities we know they feel so passionately about.”

Coran has said he expects about 20 per cent of teachers will remain too upset with the government to resume extracurricular activities.

Still, the news was enough to buoy the spirits of Hirad Zafari, who is president of the Ontario Student Trustees’ Association and who has met personally with Coran to plead for the return of after-school activities.

“I hope the elementary teachers follow suit — and I hope secondary teachers do follow their union . . . and do what’s best for students.”

The Grade 12 Don Mills Collegiate student said he expects sports like soccer and track and field will run this spring, and that clubs could start up immediately.

“I think as of Monday morning, the ones that don’t take as much planning can happen,” he said. “I am 100 per cent sure that this Wednesday my debate club meetings will return.”

The Friday vote of more than 150 local high school union leaders from around the province — the results of which are being kept secret, even to those who cast ballots — led to the decision for secondary teachers to suspend their “political action” over extracurricular activities.

The union has been meeting with representatives from the Ministry of Education to try and break the impasse, and meetings will continue.

The move by high school teachers’ union puts pressure on the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario. However, the elementary teachers’ union president Sam Hammond said he doesn’t feel any pressure, given that the two situations are different.

Hammond said his union’s meetings with the province continue next week, and that its executive will “review the situation, the progress at the table and take a lot of things into account” next Wednesday and Thursday, before making any decision on extracurricular activities by March 1.

“We are going to make our own decisions, based on our own situation with the government, on how we are going to move forward,” he said.

After the announcement by the high school teachers, several took to Twitter saying they won’t return to running after-school clubs and sports without contracts that have been bargained — not imposed as they were by the Liberal government.

Coran, who briefly spoke with the Star before driving back to his home in London, wouldn’t say how he felt about the vote result. “The membership has spoken,” he said.

He will speak publicly at a news conference Monday morning.

Michael Barrett, president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, hailed the good news but said “there’s still work to be done, there are still issues of mutual significance — but this is excellent news and shows the leadership on both sides.”

Annie Kidder, of People for Education lauded, both sides for making enough progress to get to this point.

“This is going to make a huge difference to kids and to parents,” she said.

Some have speculated that while the premier had made restoring extracurriculars a priority, the high school teachers’ union was also concerned about losing students to the Catholic system, which has had extracurricular activities all year long. The deadline for Grade 8 students to apply to high school is looming next month, and families have been calling local Catholic boards asking if they can transfer their children.

Both elementary and secondary public school teachers withdrew extracurricular activities in protest over Bill 115 and the contracts it imposed on them that freeze wages, force unpaid days off and end the long-term banking of sick days. The contracts also cut sick days from 20 to 11, with three that can be banked for up to one year.

It’s unclear what, if anything, the government has offered the high school teachers to prompt the reversal, though a source said the government has pledged to a better “process” in talks to come.

Sources also say the high school teachers’ union has continued to push for a health and benefits plan the union would run and that it says would save the government money.

Union leaders have told the Star that there would have to be local bargaining of some sort — mostly on non-monetary issues specific to each board — before they would agree to resume extracurriculars.

Those issues could include staff transfers, teacher performance appraisals and disciplinary processes.

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